Bells, Whistles and Red Lights

This is a photo of the border wall between the US and Mexico. We can see the wall only briefly at the Mariposa border crossing.
In the photo below, Bill is tying down our IKEA load outside our storage unit in Tucson. I just noticed there is similar type of wall behind our concrete wall surrounding our unit.....

We just made border crossing #4..............

At the Mariposa border, we thought we were going to sail through and then a guard came out to pay us a visit. He asked us to pull over and stop. He wanted to know what was in our truck and where we had been and where we were going. His attitude was extremely serious, so Bill answered all of his questions and he waved us on.

Of course, we were very relieved and sighed thankfully. We briefly talked about all the blogged horror stories we have read about border crossings and commented about how lucky we have been.

At KM 21 not only did we get the BIG red light, we got a loud buzzer, a ringing bell and I think I heard whistles. I was jumping out of my skin.
Bill said, #*%$ *^#*.
I said, just move forward real slow and maybe it will stop. I think we moved one inch and more buzzers went off and a huge aduana came running to the truck. He made us pull over and looked at the IKEA load in the back of the truck.

Where are your tickets, he said........Bill and I looked at each other, tickets?....what are tickets?.......your tickets, he said again........I handed Bill our visas and passports...maybe that is what he wants?.......
What is in here, he asked.........house things, Bill said....what do they cost, he said........cost? we asked........
What is things worth, he asked.............$500?...$400....$300?......
no, oh no, said Bill, it is all old junk, from our old house , 30 years worth of stuff, junk, we are taking it to our house in Alamos......
It is not worth $500, he asked....no, no, said Bill, it is ALL old...

I think, THE LIST!!!!
Give him the list, I say, here, here it is....

Bill handed him the list.
This is it, aduana asked, only one page?....I say, Bill, here, give him the list in Espanol....now he has 2 pages..

Bill handed him the list in Espanol.......same list? asked aduana..........only worth $100?
Oh, even less than that...old, old, old, junk, said Bill.
Aduana looked at our IKEA load again, shook his head like he did not believe us for one second .......but then, he waved us on.

My palms were sweating. Bill handed me back the lists and I carefully folded them up and put them in my special book for safe keeping for some reason or another...

Bill said, good job, List Lady.......